


Run

by S J Smith (Evil_Little_Dog)



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Community: cya_ficathon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-11
Updated: 2012-05-11
Packaged: 2017-11-05 04:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/pseuds/S%20J%20Smith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary:  Written for the CYA ficathon, the requests were: Spike and Dru, no B/S, and the quote: "I don't believe in Heaven. I've been living in this hell."<br/>Disclaimer:  I am not now, nor have I ever been, Joss Whedon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run

Spike hadn't really expected to survive that last fight in the City of Angel. Hell, he hadn't expected to be brought back to, well, couldn't really say "life", since he was still quite dead, after that last fight in Sunny-D, either, but he managed to get through both and the plus side was, this time, he didn't wind up really dead only to be brought back to life by the ugliest piece of jewelry known to human or demonkind. 'Course, L.A. was pretty much in ruins. There's only so much demon-fighting and magic-throwing that can be done in an alleyway before it escapes into the hustle and bustle of a major city. While some of it could've been explained away as a new movie starring some superstar movie hero, since said superstar wasn't in evidence, that didn't go over too well. Besides, when it finally stopped raining, the sun came out and some of the actual heroes might've turned to dust.

But at least he hadn't been turned to ash - or otherwise gotten destroyed in the fight. Which, somehow or another, he and Angel and Illyria had won.

Spike still wasn't too sure about the hows of that but he wasn't willing to look a gift demon in the mouth, 'specially when it might tear off his head for such an intrusion. So, after he, Illyria and Angel congratulated each other on surviving and mourned the losses of Gunn and Wyndham-Pryce over a pint at a bar that hadn't been destroyed in the ruckus, they decided what they should do next. Which was mainly, go somewhere other than Los Angeles and start over.

Illyria was dead-set on continuing the fight. Angel was wavering on the fence. Spike didn't want any more to do with it.

"Not that I don't like you," Spike said, waving his beer at Angel, "'cause you know I don't, but I ain't gonna follow you to the ends of the earth. Or wherever the hell it is you're going." Rome was probably out of the question but Spike wasn't sure Angel planned on going after Nina, either. Fact was, he really didn't care, just wanted Captain Forehead to pick a place and go - so he could go in the opposite direction. Not that he planned on going to Rome, either. Spike knew that'd been the first thing outta the geek's mouth - after Andrew'd told everyone how he and his li'l pack of Slayers took Dana away from him and Angel - that Spike was back from wherever he'd been. Slayer didn't try to contact him, now did she? And if Angel knew how to get in touch with Giles, no doubt every one of the Scoobies knew how to contact Angel - and subsequently, him. Spike was actually a little miffed that no one had even bothered to send a card. 'Course, he didn't need anything like that, no, he didn't need anything from the Slayer or her li'l band of do-gooders. But it would've been polite.

Blue'd muttered something about how the booze didn't measure up to whatever libations they used to pour down her gullet back when she was a really powerful god but drank anyway. Angel, on the other hand, just kept spinning his mug around, not drinking. Waste of good beer, Spike paused in thought, eyeing the piss-yellow stuff in the glass in front of him, all right, mediocre beer.

"I'm not sure," Angel finally said, looking at Spike with that particularly hangdog expression.

"Yer not coming with me," Spike said flatly.

"Like I'd want to," Angel said but without his usual enthusiasm for the argument. Fighting as long and as hard as they had took something outta a bloke, even if he was undead.

"We should make our decisions now," Illyria said, "before our enemy has time to regroup."

"Don't think they'll be regrouping for a while," Spike said, taking a swallow of his beer.

"Illyria's right," Angel said, starting to fret. "They'll be looking for us." He pulled a serious face. To Spike, it didn't look much different than the hangdog one he was wearing a few seconds ago. "We're in danger."

"Pff. Like that's ever not been the truth," Spike muttered. "What?" he asked, when the pair looked at him. "There hasn't been a time that we weren't either running or fighting for our lives. Such as they are."

Angel leaned his elbows on the table, lacing his fingers together. "So, what do you suggest we do?"

"Yer asking me?"

"Why not."

Spike thought it over. What should they do? "I know what yer gonna do," he said, gesturing with his mug. "Yer gonna go looking for trouble."

His smile was deadly. "Better I find it first," Angel said.

That did make a certain sort of sense. And Illyria was agreeing with it, too. Fine. They could go off together and do whatever it was they were gonna do. Spike said, "You two have fun. Me," he leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, "I'm goin' on holiday."

"You mean, you will run away," Illyria said.

That stung a bit but, "You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe," Spike said.

As he expected, there was an explosion from Angel but Spike stuck to his guns and he, Blue and Peaches parted company, them heading for some mystic Angel thought he knew of who might be able to point them towards...something. Spike didn't watch them go. He figured that they'd eventually run into each other again. World wasn't as big as it used to be, after all.

Spike preferred the confines of a city. Easier pickings, even if he was a reformed vampire. Not that he needed to be, any more, he thought. The people who inspired him - well, Joyce and Fred were both dead. Dawn didn't want anything to do with him any more, not after what he tried with her sis. And the Slayer herself? Pretty obvious she didn't care what had happened to her old shaggin' partner, not to mention how her tastes had slid decidedly down the rung of evil, if Spike said so himself.

So here he was, on his own, no one watching his every move to make sure he hadn't backslid to being the Big Bad. He didn't have to look out for anyone, either; it was all on him now, no back up, no one to make his decisions for him, just the call of, well, not some wide open spaces. After all, who knew if he could have cable out in the middle of no where? How'd he be able to get the scores for Manchester United? Watch Passions? Have a way to run, if Wolfram and Hart did decide to hunt him down?

Making a decision, Spike hopped a train heading east. He thought he could probably find a tramp steamer there that could get him out of the U.S. of A. territories and maybe all the way back to England. The Mother Country probably needed some shaking up and Spike thought he was just the vampire to do it. All he had to do was avoid the new Watcher's Council, or whatever the hell it was that Rupert was running, and Spike figured he was certainly clever enough to do that, even if there were more Slayers running around than fleas on a mutt.

"'Sides," he muttered to himself as he made his way through a sleeper car, "not like I'm not smarter than them."

"That's not what they say."

Spike froze, his hand reaching for the lever to the doorway leading to the next car.

"My Spike would've been able to run rings around those naughty Slayers." He could almost hear the disappointment in Drusilla's voice as she went on. "But you're not my Spike, are you."

"Where did you come from?" Spike asked, turning slowly around to face the vampire who'd been mother, lover and completely insane child to him.

She smiled coyly, the fingers of her left hand clawing delicately at the air between them. "The City of Daddy fell into the sea." Dru's face dropped. "And no one even called me." Swaying slightly, a little more than was necessary to keep her balance on the train, she said, "But the stars knew." Teeth bared, she snapped them with a sharp click. "They tell me the secrets you want to keep hidden." An upright finger waved at Spike chidingly.

"What secrets?"

Dru inhaled deeply, eyes closing as her neck arched upwards. "Your scent," she said, taking another breath. Her hands knotted together at her chest, pressed against the pale flesh showing above the deep red dress she wore. Her face shifted, showing the bumps and knobs of the demon trapped in the human form. "You reek of a soul," she snarled as she flung herself against the wall.

"Dru," Spike said.

"She won," Dru howled, pounding the wall with her fists, "she won she won shewon."

"She didn't win," Spike said impatiently. "It was a bloody mistake. I wanted that chip out, I gotta soul instead."

Her lips curled back, showing teeth. "The word came from all sides, my Spike, helping the Slayer. My Spike," she growled, "dancing with the Slayer." A thrust of her hips emphasized the innuendo. "My Spike, getting a soul for the Slayer." Drusilla's face crumpled. "My Spike, leaving his Dru alone, with only Grandmummy but Grandmummy died. No Grandmummy, no Daddy, no Spike. Just Miss Edith and she never has good games to play."

He pointed a finger at her. "It's yer own bloody fault, Dru. Remember the chaos demon?"

"You wanted the Slayer." She stomped her foot.

"Not anymore," Spike said grimly.

Drusilla paused, her mouth closing abruptly. A slow smile curled up her lips and she took a step towards him. "Bzz, little bees, the truth comes like honey from my Spike's lips."

He wasn't about to tell Dru why he didn't want the Slayer any more and he sure as hell wasn't gonna bring up the Immortal. Dru might think it a fine idea to hare off to Rome and compare notes with Buffy, like that would ever happen. Still. Better to make sure it didn't. "Dru, why are you on this train?"

Her palms caressed the wall behind her. "Taking a trip," she said, her eyelids lowered. She held a finger up, showing a dark streak on it and sucked the digit into her mouth. "The tastes of the West."

Spike stared at the closed doors on the sleeper rooms. He'd gotten so used to the charnel smell of death hovering over L.A. after the battle, even the scent of fresh blood didn't wake him. Dodging around Dru, he dragged open a door, seeing a couple locked in an embrace, their throats ripped open. He swallowed as he turned back to Drusilla, who giggled, pulling the finger from her mouth with an audible 'pop'. "Are they all...?"

"Dead?" She nodded like a child being offered a toy.

"Dru." The tang of copper hung heavy in the air and Spike felt his face trying to shift.

"All but one," Drusilla said, the hem of her skirt drifting around her ankles. She clasped Spike's wrist in her hands and tugged her along behind her to the other end of the car. The door of the last sleeping compartment, he realized, had been jammed shut. "Shhh." Dru put a finger to her lips, smiling wickedly. She knocked gaily.

Someone hammered back, crying. "Please! Please let me out!"

Drusilla had learned torture from the best - Angelus had made sure his li'l prize knew how to crush souls as well as take blood. She made a flourish to Spike, moving aside to let him approach. He eyed her but leaned into the door. "Hello?" he asked.

"You've got to get me out!" The pounding grew louder. "She's crazy! I think she wants to kill me!" Drusilla nodded in agreement to the words. "Help me, please!"

"Just hold on," Spike said, looking at Dru.

"Please hurry!"

"Tick tock, tick tock, the sand is running out," Drusilla sing-songed. "When it's all empty, what do we see? The Slayer's pet or a Spike for me?"

Ignoring her, Spike wrenched the door open, revealing a tiny blonde, her eyes wide in shock. Blood trickled along her forehead, a bruise marring her Sunny California tan. She all but lunged at him, burying her face into his chest. "Thank you, thank you, oh god, thank you!" she said over and over. She looked remarkably like the Slayer and Spike wondered just how much Dru had found out. The girl's sweet scent was perfumed by fear, by her life force; her heart thundering like prey's; oh, the memories that flooded through him.

And Dru practically hummed at his back.

"Oh, don't thank god." Spike gently pried the blonde off of him, holding her shoulders. "See, I don't believe in Heaven. I've been living in this hell." Her eyes grew huge as she stared up into his game face. He tilted in close to her, the breath of the single whispered word he spoke drifting across her cheeks.

_"Run."_


End file.
